Heiress presumptive to a royal throne (Portugal) with a legitimate full brother living who was not himself monarch. The brother, the future Pedro II of Brazil, was like his sister born in Rio de Janeiro but unlike her was born after Brazilian independence and therefore outside the Portuguese dominions, making him ineligible to succeed to that throne.

I suppose now I think about it Maria II's position was not quite unique, as her next sister Januária, born in the same city a few months before independence, would have been her heiress presumptive until 1835, and still with a living full brother, the selfsame Pedro II. In that year Maria II was excluded from Brazil’s succession and Januária correspondingly from Portugal’s, then becoming Princess Imperial of Brazil as heiress presumptive to her brother Pedro II, a more normal situation though being so with a living elder sister was still unusual.

Returning to Windemere’s news given in post #102, I have been having a look at the Borromeo family. I already had some acquaintance with their lineage, principally due to St Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), who was a Cardinal from 1560, aged just 21, and from 1564 Archbishop of Milan, having then reached the grand age of 25. A little touch of nepotism here, perhaps? Just so, Charles’s maternal uncle Angelo Medici (not from the famous Medici, but from an obscure and impoverished Milanese family sharing the name) became Pope Pius IV on 25 December 1559 and swiftly set about the advancement of his family members.

What made Charles Borromeo different from the usual run of Cardinal-Nephews, a phenomenon so frequent it had its own name, was his unbending integrity, keen intellect, great capacity, profound faith and genuine nobility of character. He grew to be a dominating figure in the Europe of his age, and a major architect of the Counter-Reformation. And he distinguished himself also by his care and compassion for the poor of his archdiocese, and his tireless labours on their behalf.

His canonisation was virtually by popular demand on his sadly early death, which probably deprived the Catholic Church of a great Pope, he having been already more or less venerated during his lifetime. A true saint, then? Unfortunately, I can’t get round his zealous persecution of Protestants and alleged witches, the scores of deaths by immolation he was directly responsible for, and the scores upon scores of thousands who died due to the Counter-Reformation he played such a part in launching.

A great man and a very good man, but a man of his times with the faults and blindness thereof, seems to me to be the fairest assessment. There is no doubt though that any genealogical connection with such an important figure (and, for that matter, with Pius IV, who despite the nepotism characteristic of the age was quite a good Pope) is interesting, even if due to his genuine piety and vocation it would necessarily have to be collateral. And I knew that such connections existed, the Kings of Spain and Belgium and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg for example all being descendants of Charles Borromeo’s sister Anna, wife of Don Fabrizio de Colonna, of the famous Roman family.

So all that was in my mind, albeit only vaguely, when I read Windemere’s post and realised that Charles Borromeo was the saint referred to. I have now had a rather better look at the lineage, and can add two more current sovereigns who are many times great-nephews of the long-ago saint, these being the Princes of Monaco and Liechtenstein. And the former inclusion obviously means that so is Prince Albert II’s nephew Pierre Carisaghi, whose marriage to Beatrice Borromeo sparked all this off.

I will first verify the Spanish and two Benelux sovereigns’ Borromeo ancestry, by means of tracing to Louis-Philippe I of France; see the 1848 note on posterities part two for the descent of the present-day sovereigns from him. It can readily be noted from the chain that there is another way for the Grand Duke of Luxembourg to trace the descent. This is through Ercole III of Modena, who appears two rows above Louis-Philippe and his siblings as the brother of the French king’s maternal grandmother.

The Grand Duke is the only current sovereign descended from Ercole III, but there will in course of nature be another, as Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is a descendant. However, I already mentioned that his grandfather the current Prince has the Borromeo affiliation. This comes to him in several ways, but all through Charles Borromeo’s half-sister Ortensia, Countess of Hohenems by marriage and only child to survive of their father’s second marriage, to Taddea dal Verme (and thus lacking the connection to Pius IV, which lack Prince Joseph Wenzel will remedy). This first link goes to Princess Maria of Liechtenstein, and this link continues from her to Hans-Adam II.

And finally, the Prince of Monaco. This link goes through Ortensia again to Guillaume, Count of Merode, and this one from him all the way to Pierre Casiraghi, taking in Albert II on the way. Actually, that’s not quite final, since Pierre’s bride Beatrice’s connection needs to be established. She is of course a Borromeo and paternally of the same lineage as St Charles Borromeo, but it comes to her not from Giberto Borromeo, father of all these siblings, but his brother Giulio, who succeeded in the family estates as Charles refused to renounce his vocation and marry when the death of his older brother Federigo left him as his father’s sole heir.

Beatrice is nevertheless a descendant of Giberto, again through Anna Colonna, a daughter of his first marriage and therefore a full sister of the saint. This link goes to Lodovico Taverna, Count of Landriano, and this through to the recently-married Beatrice, his great-granddaughter. So there we have it, Borromeo blood for all five current sovereigns who are Catholic, and also for both halves of the happy couple, to whom all good wishes.

In the 1848 thread note on posterities part two, the fourth paragraph originally read:

‘Louis-Philippe’s descendants are numerous enough, but less so than they might have been due to very frequent intermarriage among them. The single and dual descents shown above are very restrained compared to, for example, the six descents held by the children of the comte de Paris, present legitimate (as opposed to legitimist) claimant to the French throne. But even six descents pales beside the eleven held by the children of Aimone, Duke of Apulia, of whom the eldest is eventual heir to both Italian claims. Eleven is I believe the current record, which is not to say that it will never be bettered; these children’s parents, of whom the father contributed seven descents and the mother, Princess Olga of Greece, the remaining four, were the most recent (16th September 2008) mutual descendants of Louis-Philippe to marry, but are highly unlikely to be the last.’

They weren’t the last, and already weren’t when I wrote and posted the paragraph. I happened to see this today from Ethiomonarchist, which I must have missed before. Intrigued by the bride’s Urach ancestry, I looked the couple up and found that she had Orléans ancestry too. And these mutual descendants of Louis-Philippe wed on 25th June 2014. So the fourth paragraph has been duly amended, and spawned a new fifth paragraph discussing this latest couple’s nearest relationships, which are fifth cousin once removed, five times, all through Louis-Philippe.

As everyone reading this is likely to know already, the most recent common ancestors of the ten current European sovereigns are Jan Willem Friso, Prince of Orange (1687-1711) and his wife Landgravine Marie Luisa of Hesse-Cassel (1688-1765). As a small rebuke to genealogical sexism, of which I am as guilty as anyone (I make no claim to be anything more than an amateur in the field and would never call myself a genealogist, but have certainly written enough on the subject), it may be noted that while the Prince is commonly referred to as the most recent common ancestor of the sovereigns of today actually he is not, she is, having survived him by over half a century. One could though I suppose take refuge in the technicality that she was an ancestress not ancestor, weaselly as it might seem.

Anyway, for no discernible reason yesterday I suddenly found myself wondering what major sovereign, defined as a King, Emperor or Queen or Empress regnant, might be the most recent from whom all the sovereigns of today descend. My immediate thought was that it would be Frederik II of Denmark and Norway (1534-1588), but that wasn't quite right, as I will show. This is the complete ancestry to the great-great-great-great-grandparents level of Princess Charlotte of Nassau-Dietz, elder child and only daughter of Jan Willem Friso and Marie Luisa, who by her husband Friedrich, Hereditary Prince of Baden was ancestral to seven current monarchs. The other three, Elizabeth II, Harald V and Willem-Alexander, are not descended from her (though the Prince of Wales is, so that will be eight upon his accession) but are from her younger, posthumous brother Willem IV, Prince of Orange, so possess all the same descents.

He incidentally is ancestral to eight current sovereigns, the exceptions being the Princes of Liechtenstein and Monaco. The eventual accession of Joseph Wenzel II will remedy that for Liechtenstein but Monaco will continue to be a hold-out, for ever I expect. Anyway once more, if you look down the rightmost column of the linked ancestry you will see that the only person filling my prescription for a major monarch is indeed the aforesaid Frederik II. That, though, leaves out the possibility of common descents not through either Jan Willem Friso or his spouse. In this connection, apart from bringing descent from both children of Jan Willem Friso and Marie Luisa to the British throne, the accession of Charles III (we presume) will actually introduce a new most recent common ancestor, Landgrave Ludwig IX of Hesse-Darmstadt (1719-1790), who this time survived his wife Pfalzgräfin Karoline of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld (1721-1774), so will be inarguably most recent; though it may fairly be remarked that both consorts were far more notable individuals and left a considerably greater mark on history than their respective princely husbands.

Now, would this change also introduce a more recent major monarch, by my narrow definition, than Frederik II? Not exactly. The link is to the ancestry of Landgravine Amalie Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt, spouse of Karl Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Baden and ancestral to the same seven current sovereigns as his paternal grandmother Princess Charlotte of Nassau-Dietz, plus the Prince of Wales. Harald V and Willem-Alexander, though not the Queen, descend from Landgravine Amalie Friederike’s sister Friederike, Queen of Prussia as consort of Friedrich Wilhelm II of the same, as indeed the Prince of Wales does too, so again possess all the same descents that come through Landgravine Amalie Friederike. Various monarchs, and the Prince of Wales, descend from various other siblings of these two, and several other current monarchs from Queen Friederike, but it is not necessary to go into that.

In the second linked genealogy, going down that same rightmost column will show no major monarchs (by my definition) at all. In fact, even children of the same number a mere two, Princess Katarina of Sweden and Princess Dorothea of Denmark and Norway. The latter was a sister of Frederik II so can be discounted for these purposes. The former though was a daughter of Karl IX of Sweden, whose span was from 1550 to 1611. Frederik II was a major monarch by my definition but a minor and unimportant figure in history, King or no. Karl IX also fulfils my specifications and additionally was a considerably more important historical figure than his near neighbour but extremely distant cousin (their nearest relationship is actually the eighth of the nine shown, all through the same mutual ancestor) of the more western Scandinavian realms.

And survived him by over two decades, so I believe is the most recent major monarch, in my terms, ancestral to all those reigning today. But I said 'not exactly' above because Karl IX is ancestral not only to the nine current monarchs who descend from Ludwig IX but also to the tenth who does not, the Queen. For her descent from Ludwig IX's forebear the fifth Vasa King of Sweden, see Haec est dies post #8, entry for 1584. So the next change of reign in Britain will not introduce him as a common royal ancestor; he already is.

I didn't have to explore the additional possibility of there being a sovereign more recent than Karl IX and ancestral to all, just not through any of the individuals considered here. That wasn't required because the only mainstream royal ancestry of the Prince of Monaco not from a considerably earlier period than that of Karl IX comes from Landgravine Amalie Friederike’s son Karl Ludwig, Grand Duke of Baden*, whose own wife Stephanie de Beauharnais was a princesse française by decree of Napoléon I but by blood of minor French noble stock with no discernible royal ancestry at all. So there it is, Karl IX of Sweden is the answer to the toweringly inconsequential crucially important question I originally asked myself.

* I did not have to consider his father Hereditary Prince Karl Ludwig’s maternal ancestry, as his mother was a sister of Ludwig IX, he and his wife thus being first cousins. The ancestry of his paternal grandfather Hereditary Prince Friedrich contains descents from Frederik II and Karl IX again, one generation nearer in fact, but not from any major monarch more recent than them.

As I have occasionally corresponded with Leo van de Pas and therefore my e-mail is in the Genealogics database, I received a general message this morning, very sadly from the administrator of Leo's estate. He passed away yesterday afternoon in Australia where he lived, but it is to be hoped that the Genealogics site he created will continue to flourish as his great legacy. However that works out, all who are interested in royal genealogy owe him a debt of gratitude, and will remember him with respect and admiration. May he rest in peace forever.

That is very sad news. I never knew him personally or corresponded with him. But it was clear that he put a tremendous amount of work into his Genealogics website, and hopefully it will continue to be available online. He has left behind a wonderful legacy of research and knowledge, and he will be greatly missed.__________________Dis Aliter Visum "Beware of martyrs and those who would die for their beliefs; for they frequently make many others die with them, often before them, sometimes instead of them."

There is now a notice of Leo's death on the site home page. It states that the site will continue to be available but updates will be infrequent. I hope so for the first part anyway, it is an invaluable resource and perpetuates the name and work of someone who made such a great contribution to genealogical study.

We don't actually talk much about royal news from around the world here, there are other sites which focus on that. The Danish, Norwegian, Belgian and Luxembourg sovereigns are all also descendants of Empress Joséphine. Therefore, anyone descended from or related to Joséphine is related to all these monarchs as well as that of Sweden. Additionally, the Belgian, Luxembourg, Monégasque and former Romanian monarchs are all descended from a cousin of Joséphine's first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais, as is Vittorio Emanuele, senior-line claimant to Italy. All the descent from Joséphine is from that first marriage, so that would throw a few more royal relatives into the mix. Just to be complete, the claimant family of Baden are also Joséphine descendants.

PS I was replying here to a post which its author subsequently deleted, not talking to myself as now appears.

It's often interesting to look at the descents lesser-born spouses bring into royal houses, and I have been doing so with Countess Floria-Franziska of Faber-Castell, Landgravine of Hesse as wife of Landgrave Donatus. Although agnatically of the mediatised House of Castell, Countess Floria-Franziska is not of equal marriage status due to the morganatic marriage of her paternal-line great-grandfather Count Alexander of Castell-Rüdenhausen to Baroness Ottilie von Faber. Fabulously wealthy heiress of the Faber pen and pencil manufacturing business, now Faber-Castell, the recent and common-born origin of her family nevertheless meant that Count Alexander had to disclaim his rank and position in order to marry her, then being created Count of Faber-Castell in the Kingdom of Bavaria.

Countess Floria-Franziska's father, Count Hubertus of Faber-Castell, was a younger son of Count Roland of the same, son and heir of Alexander and Ottilie. His own marriage was to Baroness Adelheid von der Leyen, also from a noble line that could in no way be considered of equal marriage status. Landgrave Donatus's mother however was from the mediatised princely family of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, his paternal grandmother was Princess Mafalda of Savoy, daughter of Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy, and his great- and great-great-grandmothers in paternal line were both Princesses of Prussia, the former a daughter of German Emperor Friedrich III and granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

You would expect then that the nearest blood relationship between Landgrave and Landgravine would be a) remote and b) through her Castell ancestry. You would be right about the remoteness, but in fact of their three nearest relationships only one is through the Castell ancestry, the other two being through the aforementioned Baroness Adelheid von der Leyen. This is how it all works out, and shows what surprising descents can lurk in the most unpromising-seeming ancestries.

Another point of interest in Countess Floria-Franziska's non-Castell ancestry comes through Alix-May von Frankenberg, wife of Count Roland of Faber-Castell and mother of Count Hubertus. Her maternal grandfather was Baron Eduard von Oppenheim, a grandson of Salomon Oppenheim, patriarch of the famous banking dynasty, thus providing future heads of the ancient House of Brabant with a distinguished strain of Jewish blood.

And there is one more link to a famous name, this one through Baroness Adelheid von der Leyen again. Her great-grandmother in direct paternal line Baroness Mathilde von Hanau, daughter of an illegitimate branch of that same House of Brabant, was second cousin to airship pioneer Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, whose name eventually became synonymous with the craft (not to mention being hijacked by a certain well-known rock group). That is possibly a little more than six degrees of separation between the present Landgravine of Hesse and Jimmy Page, but hey, a connection's a connection. And still interesting, I feel.

Another very notable connection of Countess Floria-Franziska of Faber-Castell I have found is to Heinrich Hertz, the famous physicist who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves, and after whom the unit of frequency the hertz (Hz) is named. He was her second cousin thrice removed: I can’t show the connection as a Genealogics link because the requisite people aren’t all in the database, so will do it in tabular format as far as Freiin Victoria von Oppenheim. She was the maternal grandmother of Countess Floria-Franziska’s father, as you can see in the link to her ancestry already provided.

There is also a possible connection to an even greater name in the world of music than that of Hertz in the world of physics, Felix Mendelssohn, though I have not been able to verify it or trace all the links. Salomon Oppenheim, linked above as well as in my original post, was son of Hertz Oppenheim, son of Salomon Oppenheim, son of Hertz Oppenheim, son of Salomon Oppenheim, a younger brother of Samuel Oppenheimer, asserted in his Wikipedia article to be an ancestor of the great composer.

No further details are given, and while it is true that Felix’s grandfather Moses Mendelssohn changed the family name to that from Dessau, his own father’s first name being Mendel (Emmanuel), that does not really help. Frustratingly, Samuel Oppenheimer had a son called Mendel, but having died in 1721 he is not going to be the father of Moses Mendelssohn, born in 1729. Oh well, the possibility is there, and perhaps one day I will find out more.

This year will see the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, generally taken to have begun with the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses on 31st October 1517. I of course won’t need to do anything to commemorate the anniversary, since I already have my thread Disputatio listing and discussing the sovereigns of the day and their relationships and posterities, with links aplenty.

Theodore Harvey has now put in his own early bid, this blog entry linking to his own chart of the sovereigns and their heirs, along with a contemporary map and other information. There is no specific date given that I could see, but as there were also no changes of reign or succession during the year none is required (Genealogics gives 28th February 1517 as the birthdate of the Dauphin François, eldest son of François I of France, but I think this is a typo and it was actually 1518).

There are differences from my list, two omissions and a counterbalancing two additions. The omissions are Vasily III of Moscow, left out as not being a King or Emperor (Theodore not making the exception for Grand Princes of Moscow that I do), and Henri II of Navarre, who I would have thought should be present but perhaps there is some reason why he is not.

The first addition is that while Juana I is shown as regnant Queen of Castile, Aragón and Sicily, her son the later Emperor Charles V is also shown reigning alongside her as Carlos I (would have been Carlo IV in Naples and, contentiously, Carlo II in Sicily). That was the official position at the time, but while Charles was her unquestionable heir apparent I regard his early elevation as tantamount to usurpation, and did not take notice of it in my chart.

And the second addition is the Pope of the day, who for obvious reasons I don’t ever show but Theodore reasonably enough does, since he was a sovereign. As Theodore observes the Papacy, the Empire and Bohemia and Hungary were at least theoretically elective, so no successor could be shown. That might have been possible had there been an elected King of the Romans for the Empire or heir for Hungary and Bohemia, but at the time there wasn’t.

Denmark and Norway were actually also elective, and rather more than theoretically so. As Christian II had no children as yet his uncle the later Frederik I might have been seen as heir presumptive, which he is shown to be, but I would say he technically wasn’t. Poland was elective as well, so again I would not agree that Princess Hedwig, the elder of the two daughters that were at the time the only legitimate issue of Zygmunt I, held a position as heiress presumptive.

On a more positive note, I believe I can answer the question as to who would in 1517 have been heir to James V for Scotland. The official status of heir presumptive was held by John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, a grandson of James II and so 1c1r to James V. Incidentally this is the first I have heard of Scotland’s semi-Salic succession order, mentioned in the first link under the heading Heir presumptive, and I doubt it ever had one. Albany would have been heir under male preference primogeniture as well as semi-Salic succession, and I suspect the former is the only system that applied.

Theodore also could not say who the heir to François I might have been prior to his son’s birth. As far as I can see it was Charles IV, duc d’Alençon, as premier prince du sang and so senior agnate after the King and his immediate family, the latter not yet being existent then. As an agnate of Philippe III Alençon was senior to the Bourbons, agnates of Philippe’s younger brother Robert, comte de Clermont, but as his line expired with him it was the Bourbons who eventually succeeded in the person of Henri IV. Who as it happened was Alençon’s great-nephew, with which information I will conclude the section’s only post so far this year. Although it is never going to be a thriving hub of activity, I should think at least one or two more posts can reasonably be expected before 2018 rolls in.

PS Correction, there was a change of reign in 1517, though not among the sovereigns Theodore lists. Henri II of Navarre acceded on 12th February following the death of his mother Catherine I. His heir prior to the birth in 1528 of his daughter the future Jeanne III will have been his brother Prince Charles, born in 1510. Charles died in September 1528 and Jeanne was born in November, so the heir in the interim will have been Henri's and Charles's sister Isabella, presuming the exclusion of their elder sisters Catherine and Quitterie as being vowed religious, but that is hardly relevant to 1517.

PPS On the Scottish succession law, I have since found that it was actually Salic from Robert II, in accordance with legislation enacted by him. If all male lines from him failed then the 'right heir' should succeed, with no further specification. When his male line did come to an end with James V, all agreed that the right heir must be James's infant daughter Mary I.

Thanks for that. I have added the heirs for France and Scotland and will probably get around to adding a row for Navarre eventually.

Perhaps this is too much benefit of hindsight, but since Frederik did eventually become King it seemed logical to me to show him as heir presumptive. If Christian II had suddenly died in 1517 (as people often did without any foul play), surely his uncle would have become King?

I had thought the Polish monarchy was hereditary, at least in a de facto sense, under the Jagiellonian dynasty until 1572?

You're welcome, glad if I could help. I agree that while the later Frederik I of Denmark and Norway was not at any stage technically heir to his nephew Christian II, in practice had the latter suddenly died sonless no one would have thought of looking elsewhere, and it is not unreasonable to show him in the position. On Poland though I don't quite agree. Elections were held but it could reasonably be assumed that the late King's eldest son would be chosen. Here however we are talking a daughter, and one only four years old at that. I don't think her election would have been in even remote prospect.

In fact a daughter of Zygmunt I did become Poland's regnant Queen, Anna, but she was not four but fifty-two when elected as joint monarch with her husband Stephen Báthory. Nor had she directly succeeded her brother Zygmunt II August, Zygmunt I's only legitimate son to live to full age, the later Henri III of France having been elected in the interim. Anna had no children and did not attempt to continue as sole ruler after her husband's death, instead stepping aside from the throne and encouraging the election of her nephew Zygmunt III, Poland's first Vasa king. So with all this in mind I really would not consider the infant Jadwiga Jagiellonka, later Electress of Brandenburg under the Germanised form of her name, Hedwig, as heiress in any sense. Except for one, which is that she is the sole conduit for legitimate descent from her and Anna's father to the monarchs of today.

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